Weisberg Leonid Abramovich biography. Weisberg Leonid Abramovich Chairman of the Board of Directors and scientific director of the company, Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. They are building new businesses

Half a century ago, a boy Lenya from Pervouralsk, a small town in the Sverdlovsk region, read Daniil Granin’s novel “I’m Going into the Storm.” The book did its job: it influenced his character, choice of profession, life, destiny. Today Leonid Weisberg - ​Professor of the Mining Institute, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Honored Builder of the Russian Federation, Director of NPK "MEKHANOBR" - ​remembered: “I hardly expected then that Granin would ever want to talk to me about science and much more about almost equals. But is it really possible to predict half a century in advance?” The writer invited the reader and talked to him about big things (about Russia, its past and future, opportunities and difficulties) and small things (about people).

Daniil GRanin:

— Isn’t itAre they building anything in Russia now?

LeonidINiceberg:

— Of course, not the same as before. This is not what it was 30 years ago, when a resolution was issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers, funding was determined, the State Planning Committee was entrusted with the construction of enterprises. Now everything comes down to private investment.

— But the state doesn’t build anything at all, doesn’t finance anything?

- Absolutely nothing. Zero. Even worse, the state today owns almost no enterprises.

— And the deposits—​ state?

— Deposits—​initially yes. But if the deposit has been explored and put on the balance sheet, then a competition for a license is announced: who will develop it? And the one who received the development license decides what and how to build.

— And competitions—​ honest?

— There is not much competition in this area. If this is a gold deposit and if there is gold there that is easy to take (mined and separated from waste rock), then there are big competitions. But there are fewer and fewer such profitable deposits left. It's the same with oil and gas. Both fossil fuels and solid minerals are approached in the same way - ​through competitions. But they reflect the real structure of the business. If in oil and gas we have monopolists - ​six or seven companies that own all the licenses, then in solid minerals about 100 companies compete, although there are large ones among them.

— Do we have enough copper?

— We have a good supply of copper. I'll tell you what we don't have. There is absolutely no manganese in the country, absolutely zero. He stayed in Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan. And manganese is needed to produce alloy steels; they are very wear-resistant and are used for the tracks of tractors and tanks. We have a shortage of chromium. The problem with uranium for nuclear energy is still growing. In the near future, apparently, we will begin to mine it in Mongolia.

— Is geological exploration working well for us?

— Now they’ve turned around. From 1991 to 2003, the state provided geological exploration at 5% of Soviet times, and everyone used the data remaining from those years. And since 2003, geological exploration began to be fully funded at the state level again. In addition, private companies began to invest in this.

— And what you do—​ exploitation of deposits, work with metals -​ Is this purely engineering or is there an element of science involved?

— Without a doubt, science is ahead. But science is trying to make the result turn into engineering. However, at first it doesn't matter basic research: what to do with the substance? What is it like chemical composition? In what form and what useful minerals are included in it? And this is not some standard experience, it is ​every time completely new approach. In addition, we now have completely new opportunities in terms of scientific equipment. Science is changing everything rapidly. Five to seven years ago it was difficult to imagine how deeply we would be able to penetrate into matter and what elements we would see. We now have laboratories equipped with the most modern equipment.

- Here in Russia? Whose equipment is it? How do we look now against the global background?

— The equipment is mainly imported, but some Russian equipment appears. For example, for research we already have domestic tomographs, and our company produces many laboratory equipment. But we are very behind. In many industries: in the field of nanotechnology, nanocomposites, in the creation of new materials. There we catch up. And not just catching up, but starting new ones Scientific research, we invite leading scientists from Europe.

— You said an important word: “we’re catching up.” Catching up -​ doesn't mean overtaking. Catching up -​ repeat this. The word overtake has a more innovative meaning: to go a different way, more cunningly than others. What is our relationship between catching up and overtaking?

— Mainly, in many areas, this is ​catching up. We want to reach the level that is in the West. But they don’t stand still either.

— You only have to catch up when you’re always behind.

— Exactly. In the field of information technology, we are far behind. And information technology is changing everything now. We are moving towards a digital economy.

— And how are we catching up with other countries of the world? We invest almost no money in science today.

— I can’t say that we don’t invest money in science at all. Now they have started and are doing very well. Around 2003-2004, the oil market conditions changed dramatically. Remember, when Putin came to power, he was lucky: the price of hydrocarbons on the world market changed dramatically. He shared this luck with the country. Money appeared. The price of oil increased five to six times very quickly, and both the Russian Academy of Sciences and basic science, and applied.

— And in the sense of exploitation of deposits and enrichment—​ where does Russia stand?

— In terms of technological level, Russia is one of the five leading countries. And in Soviet times it was among the top three. At that time I knew the industry well, worked at the institute, but we spent eight months of the year at enterprises, so I had an excellent idea of ​​their level. In addition, several of us began to go on business trips abroad very early. And we knew that in terms of technical level we are not lagging behind at all: neither in energy intensity, nor in labor productivity. We did not have a single piece of imported equipment then. Not a single one! And even before the beginning of the 90s, we sold our equipment to almost all CMEA and third world countries: Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan.

— We killed it all so quickly at one point in the 90s?

— There was a bummer. Everyone was confused. People didn't know what to do. What was I doing in 1991? Do you think he was involved in science? No, I was looking for money to pay for heating. Lenenergo turned off the heat, and we were afraid of defrosting the building! What science?! When you needed to earn something somewhere and pay for one, two, three. The main thing is to find money to pay salaries and maintain the team. We have lost these years. Everything was falling apart.

If I start telling you how I became the director of MECHANOBRA in 1991 and what happened to me, this is a novel. A large northern plant paid us for our work: they sent us two carloads of herring! They are standing at the station. The director of the plant calls me: “I have nothing more to pay.” I told him: “I need to pay my salary.” He: “Herring.” I had a combat deputy in charge of economic affairs. I ask her: “What are we going to do?!” She says: “Right now!” Returns after two hours:

- I changed!

- What for what?

— Herring for bed linen!

— What does this give us?

— Better in terms of shelf life!

Then we sold this underwear somehow and paid wages. They also paid by the carload of glass. And one enterprise on the Volga bought our equipment and sent two Buran snowmobiles.

What kind of science could we think about then?! I wish I could live! And, by the way, in those years we were saved by the fact that MEKHANOBR had stable contracts with foreign companies. They received money from America for science. They ordered work from us. We still supply equipment abroad, including to the USA.

— Some little things or something serious?

- New technologies. A factory was built near San Francisco to extract gold from industrial waste, and it is working. It was an excellent contract in terms of value. They also supplied the Americans with their own machine for processing powders, which works in the space industry.

— Can Russia now manage without foreign equipment?

— This is not only a technical question. By and large, we can be absolutely self-sufficient. But what's the problem? Over the years of privatization and poor market management, a lot has been done to destroy a colossal number of factories. Let’s say, “Uralmash” today is not at all the same “Uralmash” that I remember, it was a factory of factories, an industry giant. And now Uralmash is half the size of 30 years ago.

- It is very important -​ what you say: today we cannot do without foreign equipment.

— We can’t do without imports completely yet. We can strive for this. There is such a way. But today, at this minute, if the supply of imported equipment is completely cut off to us, we will feel it.

— Why should we strive for complete independence from imports? After all, not a single European country strives for this. It is not profitable.

— There are no more countries like Russia in Europe. By population, by territory. To ensure good employment and serious the economic growth, we still must have all the competencies, be able to do everything.

For example, our institute today is interested in agricultural topics: it helps in sorting grain. Machines operating in the mining industry can sort out rotten, empty, light grains. In the stream, quickly, on a conveyor belt, and throw them aside. This is very important for subsequent grain storage. The same thing with potatoes. We know how to discard rotten potatoes in the separator when storing them for winter storage.

— This is what scientists in our institutes used to do! Manually!(Laughs). Tell me: what percentage of your time is spent reading, music, theaters, museums?​ in general, all this seemingly burdensome part of our life?

— This is the part of life for which you live. She is the dominant one. It is impossible to live without it. I try not to miss anything: exhibitions, concerts, performances. But, unfortunately, I don’t read many contemporary authors: I can’t find my own. I always have Gogol, Dostoevsky, and the Bible on my table. And among modern authors there are few: Alexander Chudakov’s book “Darkness Falls on the Old Steps”, your book “My Lieutenant”, Svetlana Alexievich. Can I ask you? How do you feel about Alexievich receiving the Nobel Prize?

- Very good. She deserved it. She -​ good writer. I know her personally. Svetlana Alexievich was a great friend of Ales Adamovich.

— Is she the primary person or the shadow of Adamovich?

- No! She's definitely not a shadow. One day the three of us were sitting together, and Sveta said that she wanted to switch to non-fiction literature; she really liked our “Siege Book”. She had already done quite well in non-fiction writing. Alexievich has a remarkable quality: the desire for authenticity of life. It doesn't require writing. 95% of world literature - ​ writing. And once upon a time a writer was called a writer. It is too -​ precious quality. Dostoevsky is all composed of his works. Raskolnikov -​ non-documentary figure and others. As a result, in Russia we have this quality -​ authenticity of life -​ was lost. In addition, censorship could not tolerate the authenticity of life. Everything that was literature was passed through censorship. And in tsarist time, and into the Soviet one. In our country, censorship has even become self-censorship: you can say something, ​ No. Our life was beyond censorship, but also beyond literature. Alexievich's literature is​ beyond any censorship. Do you think reading -​ is the need useful for a technician? Needed at all?

— I’ll answer with a phrase from the novel “Demons”: “If you fall into rudeness, you won’t come up with a nail.” These words of Dostoevsky contain the answer to your question. And this is my conviction. I can’t imagine how a person who does not have an outlook and does not understand all the joys and colors of life could be deeply involved in science and engineering? I can’t imagine a human function.

— But there are such people.

— Not just there, but plenty. It always has been and always will be.

— Do all academicians, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have such an interest in art and culture?

— Academy, like the rest of society, is heterogeneous. There is the same distribution of preferences and interests as in society as a whole.

I'll tell you one story. Your first book that came into my hands was “I’m Walking into a Storm.” A landmark book, it fostered a love for science, that methodology, that approach to scientific knowledge, which existed during the Soviet years.

And many years later I found myself involved in the formation in St. Petersburg of a new company of young guys, scientists and entrepreneurs involved in lightning protection and making progress. They work on lightning protection systems for high-voltage lines. They invested their knowledge and money into this. We started absolutely from scratch, from a corner in some room. And today it is a world-famous company; it has branches in Switzerland and China. It supplies its arresters to all countries of the world with large sales volumes. When I asked them: “Guys, what inspired you, why did you become interested in this particular thing?” They answered me: “Granin’s book “I’m going into a thunderstorm.” They are your fans. They spend money on science. They take it seriously. We built a high-voltage laboratory. They model all the time and, based on their own knowledge, constantly improve their designs. Unexpectedly, things like this happen. People read it and were hooked.

— Very nice and interesting. In my life I have met quite a lot of people who told me: “Because of you, because of your works, I went there, did this...”

— That’s right, I also remember these moments of reading. A book appears, we read it, and this always forms something in a person. I came into my profession the same way. I was 12 years old when I came across the book “Steel and Slag” by the Soviet writer Vladimir Popov. I devoured it in two days. And all these pictures of red-hot metal captivated me so much that all the time I only dreamed about them, told my friends: “You see, hot steel is flowing, the slag is being removed from it...” After the seventh grade, being an excellent student, he came home with a letter of commendation and said: “Mom, I'm leaving school. I’ll go to technical school.” She fainted. Then I explained to her that I was going to the Mining and Metallurgical College. I like this specialty. I chose a profession at the age of 14 and never changed it.

— This is an interesting mysterious feature of a person, when suddenly something completely, seemingly extraneous, coincides with what is in the soul. Or it doesn’t match and is wasted. Most people (and not only in Russia, but all over the world) do not know what they can be prepared for. What are they for? How can they realize themselves? And they live like this all their lives. When a person, perhaps even a general in life, but in fact, in his soul, he - ​ hairdresser.

- It's right. The moment you are talking about is very important when something suddenly coincides. Knowing the mechanics, I imagine this: something in the soul resonates. We have some strings inside. And somewhere an echo of some kind is heard and caught, as a result of which they begin to vibrate. A person comes to a different state.

By the way, this also exists in nature. There is an area potentially prone to earthquakes. But it will never happen there, although the probability is high. And suddenly, somewhere, 600 km away, an explosion occurs. Mining rock. They blow it up. And this explosion, many kilometers away, due to some small signal, causes an earthquake here. Such earthquakes are called trigger earthquakes. Trigger is like a trigger. There was a rumble somewhere, but here it was some kind of missing impetus for the formation of a qualitatively new phenomenon.

Seleznyov Pavel Andreevich

Seleznyov Pavel Andreevich

• Born on June 25, 1962 in Leningrad.
• Graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute named after M.I. Kalinin, St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation with a degree in jurisprudence, and the North-Western Academy of Public Administration.
• He worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, security director at OJSC Petrovsky Bank and deputy general director of Leningrad Metal Plant CJSC. He taught at the Leningrad Financial and Economic Institute named after N. A. Voznesensky.
• Since 2001, director of the St. Petersburg government agency"Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after S. M. Kirov." Since May 2005, he has held the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC EnergoMashBank.
• Candidate economic sciences. Member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Judo Veterans of St. Petersburg.
• He enjoys diving and alpine skiing.
• Club member since 2005.

Congratulations!
Happy birthday!

MAKSAKOV Evgeniy Nikolaevich

MAKSAKOV Evgeniy Nikolaevich

• Born on June 25, 1939 in Leningrad.
• Graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute named after V.I. Ulyanova (Lenina), candidate of technical sciences, associate professor. Until 1989 he taught at LETI, at the same time he was the head of an industrial laboratory information systems and automation of research. After leaving the university, he worked as a top manager of a number of telecommunications and IT companies in St. Petersburg, in particular, director of the St. Petersburg branch of the Sovam Teleport company, regional director of the DirectNet Telecommunications company, general director of the St. Petersburg branch of Lucent CJSC Technologies", director of operations in St. Petersburg at American Innovation, first deputy general director of IT Group LLC, general director of the St. Petersburg representative office of Olencom Electronics, general director of Metrocom CJSC, deputy general director of Giprosvyaz-SPb OJSC, Head of Department and Advisor to the Director for information technology Northern Capital Gateway LLC (St. Petersburg Airport), General Director of the MIRACLE SYSTEMS company. Vice President of Innovative Network Technologies (INT). Currently, Advisor to the General Director of Global Web LLC
• Interests: tennis, piano.
• Club member since 1994.

Business breakfast at the Consulate General of Estonia.

ON JUNE 18, 2019, a business breakfast was held with the Consul General of the Republic of Estonia, Mr. Karl Erik Laantee Reinthamm.

On June 18, 2019, at the invitation of the Consul General of the Republic of Estonia, Mr. Karl Erik Laantee Reintamma, Chairman of the Board of the World St. Petersburg ClubValentina Trofimovna Orlova took part in a business breakfast, where issues related to cultural relations were discussed.

The meeting was also attended by club members V. A. Dervenev and M. S. Stieglitz.

Days of Mongolian Culture in St. Petersburg.

ON JUNE 9-10, 2019, Chairman of the Board of the World St. Petersburg Club Valentina Orlova took part in the Mongolian Culture Days in St. Petersburg.

From June 9 to 10, 2019, Chairman of the Board of the World Club of St. Petersburgers Valentina Orlova took part in the Days of Mongolia Culture in St. Petersburg.

A photo exhibition “Ulaanbaatar and the Roerichs” was opened at the Museum-Institute of the Roerich Family. The exhibition presents photographs, books and other materials dedicated to the Mongolian stage of N.K. Roerich’s Central Asian expedition, most of which is associated with her stay in Ulaanbaatar (1926–1927). The exhibition was organized with the participation of the Roerich House-Museum in Ulaanbaatar, founded by Y. N. Roerich’s student, academician Sh. Bira. The house-museum presented books and objects of traditional Buddhist art. Also, as part of the Days of Mongolia, a concert of Mongolian artists took place in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after. S. M. Kirov. In the exhibition halls of the Commandant's House Peter and Paul Fortress The exhibition “Land of Blue Sky” opened.

PHOTO by Alexander DROZDOV

The Mekhanobr-Tekhnika Research and Production Corporation, where our interlocutor has worked for many years, is developing technologies and equipment for the mining, metallurgical and chemical industries. But the editors invited him to talk about... garbage. Since many years ago it became clear that a number of developments for processing raw materials are applicable when working with household waste (MSW), and Weisberg, willy-nilly, became a recognized expert among waste recyclers.

- Leonid Abramovich, in one of your interviews you said that it is better to do at least something with garbage than to endlessly choose which path will be the best...

And I’m ready to repeat it. I think long conversations are started precisely in order not to change anything. We have already agreed to the point where any step will be beneficial. And it must be done, otherwise we will drown.

Judge for yourself. We had two large solid waste landfills: Volkhonka and Novoselki. Absolutely uncivilized objects...

A landfill is a chemical reactor. It can be built only in certain places where there is appropriate dense clay. The bottom of the pit must be lined with geotextiles, and two pipe systems must be laid: to capture methane and to drain the filtrate. I saw in Europe at a landfill how this leachate is collected from the depths of a landfill: a dark green liquid, thick, like glycerin. It is taken away in special tanks and processed in special installations. chemical enterprises. In our country, at best, it flows into drainage ditches...

But these two large landfills are finally closed. Where to transport waste now?

Near St. Petersburg, one training ground remained uncrowded: “New World” near Gatchina. Although, strictly speaking, it is not rubber. In addition to it, there are several small ones - in Lepsari, in Vsevolozhsky, Volosovsky, Vyborg, Kirishi districts of the region. They are closed from time to time, but they fight, prolonging their existence...

The region no longer wants to accept unprocessed waste from the city. And he does the right thing.

Everyone is talking about the need for recycling now...

That's exactly what they say! But only.

First you need to understand what recycling is. This is primarily neutralization. The neutralized substance can already be stored at the same landfills without any risk to the environment.

By the way, laws in Europe prohibit the disposal of unprocessed, that is, non-neutralized waste. Are used various ways neutralization: there are thermal ones (garbage incineration is a special case), there are non-thermal ones... In Ioannina, for example, at processing plant No. 2 they use biological neutralization: garbage is placed in huge rotating drums and mixed for 48 hours at +60 degrees. During this time, something happens to him that would have happened for decades at an uncivilized training ground.

Similar equipment operates at plant No. 1 on Volkhonka. It was launched in the early 1970s. And No. 2 - in 1994. Both of them together can neutralize at most 20% of everything that the city throws out - which is 1.7 million tons per year.

Haven’t we moved a single step since Soviet times?

Over the past 15 years, only two notable events have occurred in the waste industry of St. Petersburg. In 2006, the plant in Ioannina was reconstructed, increasing its capacity by 1.5 times. And a year and a half ago, the reclamation of the landfill in Novoselki began. All!

More than ten years ago there were plans to build another similar plant next to MPBO-2. Then Mekhanobr, with the participation of Giprokhim, made a project that passed an examination and even public hearings. The price of the issue was approximately 3 - 3.2 billion rubles. Construction began - water was lowered in the area allocated for the plant, which was also important for the existing enterprise. That's where the project hung.

- Why?

It was a completely incomprehensible episode. The decision was made by the city leadership; the new plant suddenly seemed unnecessary.

So - only two significant events in 15 years. But there have been so many conversations over the years... The city government has approved several concepts for waste management, and they largely repeated each other. Only the years of achieving goals and promising investments changed.

Perhaps the city was waiting for scientists to have their say, waiting for new ideas, new technologies that would finally help solve the problem of recycling...

There have been no scientific or technological problems in waste recycling for a long time. Scientists have already said all the words. There are many technologies. Each region can choose what to use based on its own characteristics.

In St. Petersburg, industrial waste disposal has always been discussed in all concepts - composting, i.e. mechanical-biological technology, and to some extent the thermal route, that is, combustion. This path was outlined in the first concept: they say that by 2020 we will one way or another recycle 80% of solid waste. Now the deadline has been pushed back to 2035.

- “Burning” sounds scary. Do you have a positive attitude towards him?

How can one view technology positively or negatively? This is technology! I know that you can make a very bad incinerator. And you can - a good one, which will not cause any harm.

These are technological, engineering issues - until there is a project on the table with all the details, an expert opinion on it, there is no point in talking about anything.

Environmentalists say the world is moving away from burning...

Some ecologists say one thing, others say another. You just need to understand who exactly calls himself an ecologist. I'm glad that there are people who care about what happens to nature. Taking off my hat!

But combustion plants still appear around the world, and environmental movements somehow die down.

I have not come across a single foreign publication talking about a fundamental refusal to incinerate: the industry has been built and is operating. If there are such publications, I would be glad to see them.

In the meantime, there are waste incineration plants in the center of Vienna, and in the center of Tokyo, and in Japan in general there are about one and a half thousand waste incineration plants. Note that this does not prevent people from increasing their life expectancy either in Austria, or in Japan, or throughout Europe.

Let's get closer to our native lands.

Let's. There are four waste incineration plants in Moscow. Including near the center - on Podolsky Kursantov Street, right in Western Biryulyovo. There is constant monitoring there. Well, no exceeding the maximum permissible concentration!

By the way, do you know that there are already waste incineration plants in St. Petersburg?

Certainly. As many as three. They were built and operated by Vodokanal. Burns sewage sludge.

Exactly. The plants operate at the Central and Northern aeration stations and at the South-Western wastewater treatment plants. The process involves burning the dewatered sludge and cleaning the flue gases.

The factories have been operating for many years. It’s hard to hear any environmental activists making a fuss about exceeding the MPC. Come on, watch, monitor emissions... They are silent. I think if there were problems, there would be a serious conversation. In any case, it is better to burn the dried contents of the sewer than to accumulate it in karts, as in the north of the city and in Holguin: extremely odorous places.

But what is truly deadly is the uncontrolled, open burning of garbage, which many of our neighbors in their summer cottages, and sometimes even entire gardens, are guilty of. You see, warn them that they are killing themselves and their children, and at the same time you and me.

Why then is incineration not used more widely in our country?

It has a significant drawback: it is the most expensive processing technology. And it’s not easy to bring it to profitability, to payback.

Real savings are achieved in the full cycle, when the costs of disposing of combustion residues at landfills are minimized, when there is no need to spend money on their maintenance and subsequent reclamation. Actually, in this case, the horror called “landfills”, which have nowhere to be located in the city and which the region no longer wants to have, actually disappears.

If our population is wary of waste incineration - and no one is doing explanatory work! - then let's build factories using any other technology. Nobody says that burning is the only and irreplaceable thing.

What other options?

We have already spoken about mechanical-biological technology. She has been working with us for decades. And this is exactly what we included in the design of our plant for Ioannina.

In addition, for example, I really like the experiment that Spetstrans No. 1 carried out in the city on Staroobryadcheskaya Street.

Heaps of waste are turned into good fuel briquettes. It is necessary to enrich the garbage: that is, select stones, rubbish, and non-flammable inclusions. Thus, its calorific value will be close to the level of low-grade coal. And then: compress it and give it to cement manufacturers.

Such briquettes can be used when burning clinker as an auxiliary fuel. During firing, fresh lime is formed. And lime is a colossal absorbent. It takes on all the negative gases that can be formed during combustion.

In Europe, cement companies are already purchasing such briquettes. They got used to it gradually. At first they gave away the pressed garbage for free (they even paid extra somewhere). Then they started setting conditions. And now factories are buying it. This allows them to save up to 60% of quality fuel.

Spetstrans made a demonstration installation of this method several years ago. I wish them to come to an agreement with the cement workers. There are so many cement factories in our region that half of the city's garbage would go there.

Several years have passed? So what, cement manufacturers are still not interested?

We got interested. Experimental batches of briquettes were made. The factories tried... But, I say again, we need political will and incentive measures from the state.

So we have a choice of technologies. But there is no movement. Now, in these very days, the city is saying goodbye to the last proposed investor - the Greek consortium Helector S.A. - Aktor Concessions S.A. - AKTOR S.A., which planned to build a processing plant in Kamenka. They tinkered with it for more than seven years - and the site was allocated, and a whole committee all these years prepared tons of papers and approvals. Nothing ended!

Maybe precisely because there is no profit to be made from garbage?

Of course, this cannot be achieved without special additional measures. This is not a “gold mine,” as ignorant citizens like to say. The main income of garbage collectors is the tariff that you and I pay. This is money that should be enough for the entire chain: from the bag of garbage that we take out of the house, the maintenance of garbage sites in our yards, to transportation, processing and placement of safe, neutralized residues. And, of course, it is necessary to provide a profit that should recoup the investment, that is, the initially invested funds.

One more thing. Today no one is obliged to take garbage to this or that plant. The management company can enter into an agreement with any carrier that offers the best conditions. This is a threat to the investor who built the plant. He invested money and will sit and wait for the garbage to be brought to him. And if they don't bring the garbage...

An American garbage collector, if he wants to scare a recycler, says: you won’t get garbage from me. This sounds unpleasant for an investor; such cases have already happened in our city. A serious investor will certainly set a condition that the city provide him with the required amount of waste raw materials. Accordingly, in this case he is guaranteed to receive part of the tariff that you and I pay.

Leonid Abramovich, maybe separate waste collection is the way out? They say that as soon as citizens are ready for separate collection, then everything will immediately be fine, and the garbage will begin to generate profit...

Conversations on this topic are somewhat speculative. Complete separate waste collection, as many people understand, is neither possible nor necessary. This is my opinion.

Having established the best separate collection, we will still get this: 20 - 30% of selected food waste that is subject to mandatory neutralization, 20 - 30% of marketable (useful) fractions of various contamination, and up to 50% of other garbage, which is also desirable to neutralize. You see, in this case, investment in further processing and disposal is still required.

IN Western Europe separate collection is degrading. I started observing the process about 25 years ago. What was going on there! At first, waste sites were equipped with video surveillance to see how the population behaved. And now, according to experts, the mutual contamination of factions there is 30 - 35%. That is, the separately collected waste is brought to the plant and... they begin to sort again.

The thing is that high-tech installations have long appeared that sort garbage better and more accurately than we do at home. Consequently, there is no need for separate collection. We successfully tested a sorting plant at MPBO-2 in Ioannina many years ago.

And now I will probably tell many people the news. St. Petersburg has long had separate waste collection, although not very noticeable. At the first stage (from the trash can or even before it), recyclable materials are already removed - all useful fractions: clean paper, metal, everything that can be returned... There is nothing to do here, everything has been working for a long time, of course. It works insofar as the reception of this recyclable material is organized.

The second stage is at marshalling yards, which are available to all self-respecting carriers. They bring garbage to such stations in a short distance, re-sort it, extract the useful stuff, compress the rest and then transport it over long distances: either to a landfill or to a processing plant.

If a business wants some kind of separate separate collection for itself, let it go to sorting and buy raw materials there. Or works with the population, buying useful factions from them. I don’t see any problems that need to be talked about loudly.

I remember several years ago there was talk about the need to separately collect even different types plastic: bags, bottles like this, bottles like that...

There are already technologies that allow you to separate plastic by type directly at the factory with an efficiency of 99%, as well as technologies that allow you to process all types of plastic together. Our plant in Ioannina, by the way, has long been selling plastic for recycling this way - in bulk.

Plastic is recycled to produce low quality products. Our technologies include the production of plastic tiles for non-residential buildings. It is also acceptable to make plumbing plastic pipes.

It turns out that all these rows of tanks: “glass”, “paper”, “plastic” are a useless decoration for the yard?

I can only say that there are not many substances whose separate collection really needs to be established: batteries, accumulators, fluorescent lamps and containers for flammable substances (lubricants, oils, coolants...). Getting into the general mass of waste, these substances make any further processing technology dangerous. This is perhaps the only thing that citizens must strictly observe.

I once saw how a nanny from kindergarten She pushed fluorescent lamps with her feet into a container with the rest of the garbage. She didn't understand what she was doing?

To be fair: many city residents have long ago had boxes at home where they put batteries and other things from your list, so that they can then hand them over, as expected, into an eco-mobile or eco-box... As for the rest, are there still prospects for solving the garbage problem in the city? ?

I hope this issue will become one of the main ones for the St. Petersburg administration. Now, in my opinion, there are elements of confusion in the city’s garbage industry. Hazardous and construction waste is handled by the Environmental Management Committee, and municipal waste is handled by the Landscaping Committee. And there is also medical waste - a considerable amount, by the way. They are stored and disposed of separately. The Health Committee is responsible for them. He answers as best he can. The border between various types waste is difficult to manage...

Probably, the concept of waste management in our city will be clarified. And maybe even another plant will be built in Ioannina. The same one that was abandoned more than ten years ago. The first one is successful: it earns a profit and can already develop itself to some extent.

Now the State Duma has temporarily postponed the transition of the waste industry to the so-called single operator. Which gives us the opportunity to prepare for this radical, but important and correct reform.

Leonid Abramovich, you have repeatedly said that the situation with waste recycling in St. Petersburg is gradually changing for the worse. Could you list the main problems that, in your opinion, allow us to draw this conclusion?

It is really changing for the worse, because, like any urban infrastructure system, no less important than energy, water supply and sewerage, road networks, bridges and tunnels, waste management also requires attention. If you don't pay enough attention and don't respond to challenges in a timely manner, then you gradually accumulate them - and the situation gets worse. Just like a person when he is unwell: if he is not treated at an early stage, then gradually his condition will worsen.

There is such a completely wasteful, fantastically ugly way as removing and dumping waste at a landfill, which is culturally called a landfill, but in fact is an elementary garbage dump.

In St. Petersburg, two waste processing plants were built in ancient years. One of them was in the 1970s, and it was a unique plant for Russia with such fantastic things that we can only dream about now. You won’t believe it, but a pneumatic transport was leading to it from the Predportovaya platform, very far away, about 7 kilometers. That is, garbage trucks were unloaded in the area of ​​the current Predportovaya platform - and then through large-diameter pneumatic transport, through pipes, the garbage went to the plant on Volkhonka. It was dismantled, but even now in some places you can still see the remains of the foundations for these structures.

In difficult times, by decision of Anatoly Sobchak, the second plant was financed and built in Yanino. There was mechanical and biological technology, by the way, the same as at the first plant. But it was fresh, modern. Then, already during the time of Yakovlev, they began to design its development, and under Valentina Ivanovna (Matvienko - Ed.) they launched increased capacity.

Since then, several concepts have been written, several models of waste management, but things are not moving, because in order for it to move, at least something must be changed and something must be done.

Recycling is a fundamental thing because it gives you something called decontamination. But there is such a completely wasteful, fantastically ugly way as the removal and dumping of waste at a landfill, which is culturally called a landfill, but in fact is an elementary garbage dump. None of the polygons that exist in Russian Federation, does not comply with modern environmental standards, such as those adopted in the European Union. There is no interception of wastewater saturated with heavy metals, where the entire periodic table is, there is no collection of methane, dercaptan and other odorous gases.

But in this method we also hit a wall. There is no place in St. Petersburg even for such a completely uncivilized method of storing non-neutralized waste. Novoselki must be closed, Volkhonka is burning, it must be closed immediately. There is one training ground - New World in Gatchina. But the entire city cannot be confined to one polygon. The same applies to him as to everyone else, but at least he can function, although he has also already reached prohibitive heights. The area does not provide space for a polygon; she doesn’t want St. Petersburg to remove waste so uncontrollably.

The city now resembles a certain housewife who, while cleaning her apartment, sweeps the garbage under the sofa with a broom. It seems clean, you just need to lift the sofa and see what’s really going on.

Process where, at what enterprises? There is none of them. The city says: give me an investor. Investors come, talk, achieve some fantastic conditions from the city, the city makes these concessions, still doesn’t build anything and disappears. We have already heard about five or six such approaches. I even took part in some. Either a French company comes, or a Japanese one. Then there was the Swedish one, then we spent a long time fiddling with the Greek one.

Neutralization technologies are actually more expensive. Investors want to return this money. This means that in your tariff you provide for a certain refund component - and you need to increase the tariff for the population. The tariff turns out to be very high. It depends on how many years you want to depreciate the enterprise. They want the plant to pay for itself in 7-8 years. Well, of course, then the tariffs will be crazy. The normal European payback period is at least 12-15 years and up to 20 years. Over these years, it can pay for itself at normal rates.

We are all concerned about hazardous waste. Let's say the story of Krasny Bor. This was a city training ground. Why haven’t we been working on it seriously for many years? It turned out that the project was poorly made, and the construction was somehow a blunder. In 20 years, it was possible to build a plant and forget about it, close the issue. But you see, things have come to a scandal - what to do with Krasny Bor.

Or take the medical waste management system. It is also far from transparent in the city. And we see in household waste, when we conduct its morphological analysis, up to one percent of waste associated with medical institutions.

These problems are growing and bringing the city to a standstill. There is nowhere to recycle, nowhere to store. This is gradual, I won’t say catastrophic - it’s not like in Naples, where the army had to be raised to take out garbage and clean the city - but it’s getting worse. The city now resembles a certain housewife who, while cleaning her apartment, sweeps the garbage under the sofa with a broom. It seems clean, you just need to lift the sofa and see what’s really going on.

How did it happen that St. Petersburg went from being one of the leaders in the field of waste recycling to this situation that we have now?

I think that this problem has never been one of the first and most important for the authorities. There was an underestimation. St. Petersburg was truly a pioneer; it built two exemplary factories for the country that could be improved. St. Petersburg has a unique science in this regard; there are several teams here, both scientific and design, that can design the most modern and inexpensive waste processing plant using the most advanced technologies in the world. I won’t name them, but there are 5-6 such groups in St. Petersburg that can participate in competitions, fight with each other, and compete. That is, there is no monopoly here. In St. Petersburg there are wonderful specialists in this matter who have been dealing with this problem for many years and know it well, in detail - both the economic side and the practical one. Our carriers are also highly qualified.

But, apparently, it was still believed that it was important to develop the energy sector, it was important to develop the road network, it was important to build interchanges, but here we will somehow survive on the residual principle.

Waste management is included in certain documents and strategies. But there are very few points where one could tick the question, close the issue, and say: done, done once and for all.

We just need political will to appear, so that someone who is responsible for this issue in the city would say: that’s it, guys, today we must begin to resolve this issue and within a week such and such resolutions should be issued. To be honest, it's not that difficult. By the way, this question also hangs in the region.

But I know examples of cities that are actively involved in this and are doing something. In particular, Moscow and the Moscow region look much more energetic against our background.

-Are they building new enterprises?

They build, they have agreements with investors in the form of large state-owned companies. Rostec will build in the Moscow region. There are companies in Moscow that deal with industrial waste and hazardous waste. That is, nothing goes out of sight.

Let's return to the economic component. We are often told that recycling waste is profitable, that waste is a commodity, that recyclable materials can be extracted from it, gas can be burned and electricity can be generated. Why don't we have all this in reality?

The phrase: “Garbage is a commodity” belongs to me, and it’s probably already 15-16 years old. I have to tell you that this is the part that works. Our carriers turned out to be quite competent people and realized that if they sort the waste and choose the business part, which, according to various estimates, ranges from 15 to 22% on average, then, firstly, they will have to transport less. And they will also pay less for placement at the training ground. But that's not all. They also sold recyclable materials. And they initially took money from the management company for transporting the entire mass of garbage. That is, they received additional income from the money received, in addition to their planned profit.

Even sorting as a first step is a profitable business. By the way, it has not yet been determined how legally they have the right to do this, since it is not clear who owns the waste. If the city said: “This is mine” - and you make money from it, then, excuse me, lower your rates by this amount. You will receive additional income through the sale of recyclable materials. But this issue is not regulated.

As for gas and electricity generation, I would, frankly, be quite skeptical about this, because in Russia this is not very relevant, we have resources to generate electricity. In poor Europe, which grabs every chance, garbage really is an element of alternative energy. But not in Russia. Given our prices for electricity, which we get from gas, energy from burning waste will be expensive. Moreover, even in Europe it is subsidized. The energy that is obtained from burning garbage is actually more expensive than what they have in the networks. There, wholesalers who buy electricity, transport it and sell it to consumers are forced by law to buy from garbage collectors at a higher price. Its share of 5-6% is spread out and does not greatly increase the cost of all electricity.

But in our country no one really generates. If the question arose about building a waste incineration plant, it could generate. And collecting at the landfill is more expensive. Imagine, you put a cap on a landfill and collect methane. It is cultural, it is civilized, but its maximum is sufficient for the needs of the landfill, to ensure the functioning of some kind of life or office there. This must be done, because otherwise methane escapes into the atmosphere and into our lungs. But it is impossible to say that we will reap big benefits here.

- So, in any case, residents will pay for new processing technologies?

And the residents pay for everything. Whatever you take, the end consumer pays for everything. He pays for water, for the fact that the water was sent clean, and, naturally, he will always pay for garbage. Another thing is that in different ways. For example, if we are talking about recyclable materials, today they are sorted, but the business of processing recyclable materials itself is marginal. The percentage earned there is not very high. To encourage the recycler, a deposit will be set for tires, furniture, everything. By purchasing an object, we will pay in advance for its funeral, for its future disappearance from our lives. But who will pay? Again the consumer. Even for a jar of yogurt, they will add a penny for the fact that it will be disposed of on time and correctly.

- Let's talk about the reform of household waste management, which is taking place at the federal level and involves the creation of unified garbage operators. In your opinion, will it somehow help solve existing problems?

I'm skeptical about this. The only reasonable thing that has been done is the introduction of certain fees for the circulation of secondary products that should leave the market, what we just talked about. This will provide some incentive for the processor if this fund works in a targeted manner.

And the introduction of one regulator, two regulators... I don’t believe that by rearranging chairs, problems can be solved. Well, where will the factories come from? This is a typical echo of Soviet times: when something needed to be decided, a ministry was created. We need to build enterprises, we need to build testing grounds, then everything will be decided without any single operator.

Do existing technologies allow us to avoid waste disposal? And what can we achieve as a result of their implementation?

In fact, there are no technological problems in this matter. We have a certain environmental movement that likes to scare the population by burning garbage. Although in fact modern combustion is part of the best available technology and can be used in the same way as the plant in the center of the beautiful Vienna operates. I was at this plant and admired this building on the banks of the Danube. It heats the water in Vienna's hot water ring system.

Don't want burning? No need. There is mechanical-biological technology, and there are others. You just need to want to solve the problem.

A waste plant is an expensive building. It costs 600-700 euros per ton of annual production. If you want to build a plant with a capacity of 350 thousand tons, as our investor wanted, it turns out to be 245 million euros.

Here is just one of the modern trends. We have a fairly large volume of cement production in the Leningrad region. Cement is produced with enormous energy costs. There are long rotating kilns where the clinker is fired. It is mainly sintered using natural gas, or diesel fuel can be used. But now abroad they are actively using garbage for this. It is first sorted, low-calorie fractions are removed from it, the calorie content is increased, in essence, new fuel is prepared from garbage. In the West it is called RDF (Refuse derived fuel - fuel extracted from garbage. - Ed.). You get the calorific value of brown coal approx. Why is it interesting to burn it there? When you make cement, one of the clinker elements produces a large amount of lime. And lime has enormous absorption capacity. And you have no exhaust on the pipe, you don’t need to build some kind of fantastic gas purification plant at a waste plant.

A waste plant is an expensive building. It costs 600-700 euros per ton of annual production. If you want to build a plant with a capacity of 350 thousand tons, as our investor wanted, it turns out to be 245 million euros. But here 70 million are occupied by gas cleaning systems. If you do RDF and go to the cement workers, you don't need to build anything at all. They incur some costs for altering the supply system to the furnace, but they then save up to 8% on fuel and pay for their alterations. Moreover, there is an entrepreneur in the city, one of our respected garbage collectors, who has created such a demonstration site.

Here, of course, there are difficulties - this is all good if you managed to separate hazardous waste at the entrance to the waste stream, if you are accustomed to the fact that you do not throw batteries there, fluorescent lamps that contain mercury, containers contaminated with petroleum products are flooded oil into the engine and threw the can. Our population, unfortunately, is not yet accustomed to this.

Second question. If our entire flow does not go to RDF, which may be the case, given that cement production volumes fluctuate depending on the market and there are ups and downs, then, of course, we need to build a normal waste processing plant. But why are we always looking for an investor? Why not build a normal plant for budget money?

We had such a task under Valentina Ivanovna. We designed a plant that is exemplary, from my point of view. Moreover, we were paid for that project. We put it through a state examination, and we put it through public hearings. I mean doubling the plant in Yanino. And then what I call a designer’s dream happened, when they paid you for the project and they don’t build it. Only we were not looking for this happiness, we were ready to build.

It cost 3.5 billion rubles. 10 years have passed since then, well, even if it costs twice as much now, although there was not a single unit of imported equipment, everything was domestic, our factories would have been overwhelmed. Let it be 7 billion, but the tariff would not rise. We didn’t need to pay back anything if the city had been built with budget money. This means that the tariff would include only the operational component. It's profitable.

No funds in the budget? Well, issue a loan, contact the population, so that the population acts as a collective investor, for example. Say: you will get this money from yourself, you are paying for the garbage. But you will receive them with a large percentage later. I would buy.